


To Whatever End

by nereidee (aurasama)



Series: A Lover's Lament [3]
Category: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Genre: Alternate Ending, Betrayal, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 21:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10953255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurasama/pseuds/nereidee
Summary: Discovering the truth behind Alexander's motives has left Daniel full of fury and regret - and shame far greater than his past self's note had lead him to believe. But when he finally confronts the baron he soon learns that carrying out his revenge might not give him the closure he desires...





	To Whatever End

It was a miracle he'd even made it to the Inner Sanctum on time. He'd feared the whole time that the rest of the chancel would collapse beneath him and take him with it into the ravine beneath. Agrippa's fate, he knew, would haunt him; the corpse he'd been trapped in now lay buried under layers and layers of debris that he hadn't been able to clear out.  
  
The Shadow's cries were closer all the time, and he hadn't stopped running until the door of the orb chamber had slammed shut behind him.  
  
He could tell the ritual was already underway. The unearthly blue light illuminated the chamber once again, even stronger now, and the baron stood on the pedestal at the far end of the chamber, eyes on the ceiling. He hadn't looked away once from the debris slowly rotating in the air, but Daniel knew he was aware of his arrival.  
  
”Alexander,” he called as loudly as his voice allowed. He was shaking all over; the exhaustion from his run through the castle was nothing, nothing after he'd discovered that one last entry from his diary in the Sanctum. There was a terrible, hollow feeling in his gut that deepened with every step he took towards the other man. _Traitor.  
  
_ ”I was wondering if you would show up,” the elder replied, an edge of resignation to his voice.  
  
Daniel said nothing. The sounds within the chamber were unspeakable; he'd never heard anything quite like it, not even that one time the baron had uncovered the Orb and flooded the chamber with its blue light. Whatever it was that Alexander was doing seemed to have disturbed something on a very fundamental level – it was as though the ground itself cried out in vengeance as the ungodly construction spat out lightning on its own and raised enormous boulders hurtling through the air with no regard towards gravity. The sight made Daniel's head hurt, the noises making the hairs at the nape of his neck stand to an end.  
  
Somehow, he forced himself to keep moving. The ground lurched like preluding an earthquake but he forced himself to ignore it.  
  
”What do you think you could possibly accomplish with this?” Alexander asked.  
  
”You just left me to die!”  
  
”Yes, I am very well aware of that.”  
  
Daniel cast around wildly, looking something, anything he could utilise, any way to disturb the ritual. He picked up a rock from the ground and tossed it at the baron, but it bounded off in the opposite direction as though it had hit an invisible wall. In the light of the chamber Alexander looked transmuted, somehow much less human than Daniel remembered him, and he averted his eyes from the man, disgusted.  
  
”There is nothing you can do now, my friend,” the baron said coldly. ”I can't allow you to disturb the ritual.”  
  
”Don't talk to me,” he spat. _Friend,_ the word echoed in his head, and it made blood pound in his ears. He turned his attention to one of the pylons, standing next to him. _Perhaps this would do the trick._ Without another thought he pushed against the pillar, putting all of his weight against it. It wobbled, tilting off balance, and Daniel grit hit teeth as he pushed and pushed, so close to upending it, so very close now…  
  
”Stop that!” the baron's voice rang out suddenly, louder than before.  
  
He felt a small jolt of exhiliration at that; he was doing something right if it was making the other man sound that concerned. Without pausing for a breath he threw his weight against the pylon once more, determined to bring it down this time. Before he could get further than that, however, someone shoved him aside and he lost his footing, falling over. When he looked up, Alexander was towering over him, his brows furrowed to an angry line.  
  
”You'll ruin it if you keep going, you fool,” he told the brunette.  
  
”I won't let you go,” Daniel snarled, his voice shaking with barely controlled rage. ”Not after what you've done to me!”  
  
Alexander backed away as the younger man scrambled to his feet. He lunged at the baron, made to grab him, but the ground shook again and brought him to his knees. Alexander was eyeing him apprehensively, and above them the debris spun around faster and faster until it was just a blur of movement. Daniel felt sick to his stomach just watching it, yet it was an effort to wrench his eyes away from it.  
  
”After what _I_ have done to you? What about what _you_ have done to me?” the baron said, equally angry. ”You told me you'd save me, how you'd face the Orb's Shadow yourself and—”  
  
He didn't get to finish the sentence; Daniel had pushed himself up and thrown himself at the baron, howling with rage. His fingers dug into the elder's shoulders and he tried to push him down, but the baron, somehow less frail than Daniel remembered him, stood his ground and wouldn't budge.  
  
”You don't get to talk about promises!” Daniel yelled him, flecks of spit hitting the baron in the face. ”After everything we did, _you_ betrayed me!”  
  
He was expecting an apology; for the baron's face to reflect some form of remorse or pain, but none came. Alexander simply placed his hands on Daniel's wrists and said, ”I had no choice. This is my last chance to return home.”  
  
The baron hadn't so much as raised his voice, but Daniel winced as if hit. His arms shook but he refused to let go of the other man.  
  
”You'd save yourself and leave me to die?”  
  
”How is that any different from what you're trying to do?” Alexander cut across him coolly.  
  
”You said you'd save me! You said—” Daniel stammered. The words were tumbling out as though on their own volition. ”You said that…. That you'd take me… That we'd… we'd be together...”  
  
At the back of his mind he remembered those words spoken to him in the dead of the night, the comfort they'd brought, the only speck of light in a horizon that seemed darker than ever. It made his skin crawl as flashes of recollection came back to him; hot breath against his neck, bare limbs, and wanton wishes whispered into the darkness… Alexander inclined his head ever so slightly, the smallest recognition that he remembered it, too, but his expression was unreadable.  
  
”You promised you'd take care of me,” Daniel said finally, glaring at him. Alexander returned his gaze calmly, letting go of his wrists.

”You need to let go, Daniel.”  
  
_”Why would you do this to me?”_  
  
His voice came out in a strangled cry. His hands trembled as he clung to the other man's shoulders; he wanted to shake him, beat him, anything to force a reaction out of him. But Alexander's face remained impassive, his eyes more distant than they'd ever been. And suddenly, Daniel understood.  
  
”You don't love me,” he whispered.  
  
”No,” the baron answered. ”I don't.”

”Did you _ever_ love me?”  
  
”No.”  
  
The words were like a blade twisting in his gut. With a terrible cry Daniel sunk to his knees and another earthquake rocked the ground, as though resonating with his pain. An endless, black pit was opening at his feet and there was no light, no bottom, nothing but the cold, hard truth of Alexander's betrayal. He wrapped his arms around himself, gasping for breath, his entire body trembling with sobs that were waiting to break free.  
  
”Then why did you…?”  
  
”I needed your help.”  
  
”You could have just turned me down!”  
  
”It was much simpler to play along. You were so eager to please me.”  
  
The baron's voice was colourless, as though he were merely explaining yet another of his experiments.  
  
Daniel laughed, a strained, mirthless sound that echoed hollowly in the chamber. He could feel a tear sliding down his cheek, then another, and another. All of their hopes, dreams; they had all been only his all this time.  
  
”And you'll just go home now? To _her_?” he said, staring at the floor. His vision was growing blurry.  
  
”Yes.”  
  
The floor was vibrating more intensely and he knew the Guardian was drawing closer and closer; its enraged howls filled his ears. Yet such a numbness was spreading through him that fear seemed unable to touch his heart any more, and Daniel lifted his tear-stained face to look at the man standing above him, his face both terrible and achingly familiar. His visage was ghostly in the glow cast by the Orb, and the younger man fought back the urge to touch him.  
  
”Please,” he pleaded, his voice breaking. ”Please take me with you.”  
  
”I cannot,” Alexander said, and for the first time there was a hint of regret in his amber eyes. ”The Shadow has marked you. You cannot pass through the gate.”  
  
”I'll kill you for what you've done” he said. The words sounded more hollow than ever; they fell from his lips as an empty threat, without any real intention or passion behind them. Whatever hatred his former self had felt when leaving him those instructions had fallen apart, and he could not piece it together any more.  
  
Alexander stared back at him and his silence told Daniel neither of them believed him. The tears were now falling unhindered, splattering down to his lap, and the baron seemed frozen in place, unable to say or do anything.  
  
”I don't want your pity,” the brunette choked out, scrambling to his feet unsteadily. ”If it's the only thing you can give me, I don't want it!”  
  
He made to rush towards Alexander but the baron caught his wrists, holding him in place. The Englishman tried to struggle but he was too weak, too tired to fight the baron, and he gave up, slumping against him. He could feel Alexander stiffen, alarmed.  
  
”I don't want it,” Daniel repeated in whisper, closing his eyes.  
  
The baron pushed him away, stepping back. ”I have none left to give, Daniel. You ought to know that already.”  
  
Daniel watched him back away, the last remnants of his resolve to kill the man wilting into nothingness. Whoever he had been before drinking that potion had taken that resolve with him for good, leaving behind only the shame. He imagined chasing after Alexander and pinning him to the ground, smashing his head against the ground until it crushed his skull, but all it did was turn his stomach upside-down, bile rising into his mouth. He had been a killer once; he couldn't bring himself to be one again.  
  
When the floor quaked again, the Guardian's roars now closer than ever, he simply fell to his knees and did not make an attempt to get up again. Around him, small tears were opening up on the floor, and the chamber was bathed in that eerie blue light, so bright that he could barely see anything from his tears.

Alexander turned to look at him once more. The Orb seemed to have robbed him of all colour, making him appear alien and strangely distorted, and Daniel hated him for it. He had a half-formed memory of fumbling for a candle in the dark, and of being pushed back down on the bed before he could light it, the weight of another body pressing against his. Always, always in the dark, no matter how much he'd detested it. If only he'd seen Alexander like this before, he would have known. He would have _known_.  
  
”Forgive me, friend,” the baron said, and Daniel flinched instinctively. His appearance had become less and less human the closer the portal came to opening, but his voice remained unchanged. Always the voice that comforted; the voice that instructed.  
  
_'I'll let you come to no harm, Daniel.'_  
  
The voice that deceived.

Daniel looked at the man whom he'd thought he'd loved one more time, and he couldn't tell if he was shaking with fear or anger.  
  
”Don't call me that!” he yelled, but just then, behind him and all around them the walls began to bleed with a chorus of pained voices, and his words were swallowed the cries of the Guardian. He thought he saw Alexander turn his eyes away from him and then, the portal flared a blinding white, so bright that it burned, and when the light vanished, the baron was gone.  
  
”Curse you, Alexander!”  
  
Fear or anger; he'd take them both with him to the grave.

**Author's Note:**

> You guys may have noticed already that the stories in the A Lover's Lament series, while following the same theme, aren't directly related to each other, or indeed even exist on the same timeline. There are lots of what ifs in the different endings that leave my mind buzzing - mostly with extremely depressing headcanons - and this gives me a chance to explore them.
> 
> This particular short was inspired by the song 'Jillian' by Within Temptation. That song always gives me the worst Alexander/Daniel feels.


End file.
